LISA WILKINSON: Kevin Rudd leaves Australia today on a two and a half week trip through the US, the UK, Europe and China. It follows yesterday historic COAG meeting in which Victoria finally signed the Murray Darling rescue plan. Joining me now is Deputy Prime Minister, soon to be acting Prime Minister, Julia Gillard. What time do you take over?
JULIA GILLARD: Well it will be around the middle of the day. Kevin is actually here this morning, he’s making a speech in Melbourne and then he’ll be off later in the day.
LISA WILKINSON: You, I should point out the first thing you said when you sat down this morning was this was Tony’s old chair.
JULIA GILLARD: Yes, from our debate days this is Tony Abbott’s chair. I‘m wondering whether it’s bad karma to be sitting in it but I’m going alright.
LISA WILKINSON: Now the trip that the PM leaves on today, there is already some rumblings about it. Two and a half weeks as I mentioned UK, Europe and China. It’s sounding like a bit of a jaunt. Does he really need to be going on this trip so early in his Prime Ministership?
JULIA GILLARD: Well I think that it’s important early in his Prime Ministership to go and meet with world leaders. He’s meeting with President Bush for example. You know the world is a smaller and smaller place and what happens here in Australia is now fundamentally connected with what is happening overseas. So its very important that we understand what is happening with the global economy, what’s happening in global politics and that’s what Kevin is going to be doing in the time period he is away.
LISA WILKINSON: So no one is concerned about, I mean the Budget papers are needed to be finalised at the moment. There are still a lot of things happening back here.
JULIA GILLARD: Well work goes on of course and Wayne Swan, Lindsay Tanner and the Expenditure Review Committee of which I am a member, will continue working on budget processes. But Kevin obviously timed the trip so that its part of getting out there early in his Prime Ministership, talking to the world. We have delivered some substantial reforms here in the country already. Yesterday’s COAG meeting was very important to that. Today I am delivering the start of the end of Work Choices, proclaiming our new workplace relations legislation. So he’s been focused on matters domestic, now its time to talk to the leaders of the world and then of course in May we’ll see the Budget.
LISA WILKINSON: Well his first stop, Washington meeting with President Bush. What sort of reception do you think the Prime Minister is going to get there? He had a very famously close relationship with John Howard, he called him the ‘man of steel’.
JULIA GILLARD: The American Alliance I think is stronger than any individual leader, it’s endured as we’ve had different Prime Ministers and the United States has had different Presidents. And of course we know George Bush is towards the end of his presidency, his going to be replaced by someone, we just don’t know who yet. And whoever is in either chair I think the bond between our two nations is a very strong one and I think that will be on display when our Prime Minister meets with President Bush, you will see a warmth between the two countries. We’ve obviously had different views about some things, we had a different view about the Iraq War but that is well known in the United States and none of that is going to strike President Bush as a surprise, indeed the Prime Minister had an opportunity as Opposition Leader to raise those matters with President Bush when he was here in Sydney.
LISA WILKINSON: Well yesterday was a pretty successful day with COAG but is it too late to save the Murray?
JULIA GILLARD: Well you’ve got to have a national approach to these issues and what we wanted to achieve and what we did achieve yesterday and it’s a huge breakthrough, is to say lets manage the Murray Darling as a nation. It’s not about which state you’re in or where your state is positioned along the river system, this is a national asset and it’s got to be managed in the interests of the nation. So I think that it is a huge breakthrough. Coming from the state of Victoria, obviously Premier Brumby was anxious about what this would mean for Victorians but it’s great to see that he has come on board. I think its going to make a big difference…
LISA WILKINSON: A billion dollars certainly makes a big difference.
JULIA GILLARD: A billion dollars is important, it’s an important investment in Victoria which is so much the food bowl part of the nation. It is too late, I don’t think so, I think it’s important to be getting on with the job and getting on with the job as a nation managing the river system. They’re big issues of course there are, coming from Adelaide and talking to my parents regularly, when your down that end of the river, those issues are ever present and its about drinking water, its about something really basic to human lives. So this is the start of what is going to be a big job for the nation and its part of what we need to do to get to the bottom of the challenge of climate change. We’ve got to better manage water, we’ve got to live in a different way and of course ratifying Kyoto was part of that and Penny Wong is managing a lot of those changes for us.
LISA WILKINSON: Ok just a quick couple of things. The money was flying yesterday another billion dollars for health. When will you be taking that over and do you really think it’s going to make a difference?
JULIA GILLARD: I think it makes a difference to be investing in our public hospitals, I think they have been under stress and strain in part because the former Federal Government didn’t step up to the plate. Its share of public hospital funding was declining. That meant real pressures and those pressures showed in emergency department queues, in people not been able to get a bed for elective surgery when they needed it so new money is going to help. We need reform as well and we are going to be working with the states on reform but Kevin Rudd made a big promise before the last election, he said he’s accepting responsibility for getting it fixed, we are going to have a major reform process.
LISA WILKINSON: But when will you take over public hospitals?
JULIA GILLARD: Well we are going to work with the states in partnership. We are standing ready to ask the Australian people for a mandate to takeover if that reform process looks like it’s not going to work. But I’d have to say that the signs are optimistic with yesterday’s new understanding about health care funding and a lot more money going into the system.
LISA WILKINSON: And just quickly it is a very historic day today, anniversary of Work Choices and you say goodbye to them today with the Governor General.
JULIA GILLARD: That’s right. Work Choices is two years old today, it was two years ago that the Howard Government’s extreme workplace relations laws came into effect. I am going to go and see the Governor General this morning and ask him to proclaim our end of the making of Australian Workplace Agreements. So it’s the beginning of the end of Work Choices. It’s getting rid of a very hated bit of Work Choices because there are too many working families that lost basic pay and conditions because of these Australian Workplace Agreements. And from midnight tonight there won’t be any new Australian Workplace Agreements, they’ll be gone.
LISA WILKINSON: Julia Gillard, good to have to back in the studio.
JULIA GILLARD: Nice to be here even in Tony Abbott’s chair.
LISA WILKINSON: You’ve got the other big chair down in Canberra to fill now. Have a good two and half weeks.
JULIA GILLARD: Thanks very much.
LISA WILKINSON: Thanks for your time.
ENDS